Onward to Victory

This latest book by Sperber (College Sports, Inc.) gets off to a singularly poor start, with most of its first 200 pages a rehash of, or elaboration on, his earlier study of Notre Dame football, Shake Down the Thunder. Sperber makes the point that the 1940 film Knute Rockne--All American was very influential in shaping what he titles the classical view of the college athlete who excels in the classroom as well as on the gridiron, the mens sana in corpore sano. But his own attitude toward Notre Dame coach Rockne approaches devotion, as when he cites a magazine survey that names Andrew Carnegie, Albert Einstein and Rockne as our three greatest immigrants. In his view, the three major crises that have shaped college sports are the basketball point-shaving scandals of the 1950s, which landed some players in jail; the exam-cheating scandal at West Point in 1951, which led to the dismissal of 90 cadets; and the adroit maneuvering by the NCAA in the 1950s and '60s that gave the organization the dictatorial control of intercollegiate sport it now enjoys. Having done a great deal of research into contemporary press accounts, papers and letters, as well as interviews, he seems loath to leave out any of his hard-won material. This results in a compelling but extensively padded argument (there are lengthy excursuses on the printed programs for football games, for example). Some judicious paring would have made the book easier to read--a little less like dragging the Kansas State defensive line through the muck. Photos not seen by PW. (Nov.)